Architype Crouwel is a collection of typefaces created in collaboration with Wim Crouwel, following his agreement with The Foundry, to recreate his experimental alphabets as digital fonts. Crouwel's most recognized work was for the Van Abbe and Stedelijk museums (1954 –72) where he established his reputation for radical, grid-based design. Architype Catalogue originates from Wim Crouwel’s Stedelijk Museum exhibition catalogue for sculptor Claes Oldenburg, 1970. The cover’s soft ‘padded’ letterforms evoke the artist’s work. Oldenburg was so taken with the design, that he asked Crouwel to complete the alphabet.

A 1930s hand-lettered poster for the play "The Cradle Will Rock", put on by the WPA (Works Progress Administration) Federal Theater Project is the source material for Talent Show JNL; available in both regular and oblique versions. Originally, the "R" and "L" had fish hook bends, but those two letters were revised to be more traditional in structure. The obvious Art Deco influence, along with what sign painters refer to as "stovepipe lettering" (straight lines with curved [bent] corners) is a simple, clean approach to retro-influenced titling.

The roots of this font go back to 1967. A book title in trendy letters was created in a completely ingenuous way as a film prop for a Super 8 fun film. I drew the letters with felt-tip pen and poster paint without thinking too much about it. It wasn't until a good 50 years later that I realized, this was a first awkward typeface draft. The flower power vibe was captured here subconsciously. In 2019 I completed the few glyphs and created variants that I would not have thought of at the time.

ITC Musclehead is the work of type designer Timothy Donaldson, a robust, densely packed handwriting typeface. It almost looks like brushwork but was in fact made with a ruling pen which Donaldson had bought from a company in Salem, Massachusetts. He says, The world's gone ruling-pen mad at the moment [late 1990s] and I was beginning to tire of all the skinny splashiness of the letters that most people were making with them. I wanted to do something heavy and robust with the tool, so that's what I did.""

Interlude originated with some title lettering which we found in an Austrian theatre program from the early 1900s. With some more research we found a similar style called Tradition which was designed by Bernard Naudin and produced by a Parisian type house during the period before World War I. Using those two sources we ultimately produced two variant versions of the font, combining elements of the two sources. Interlude features characters with open areas in the heavier strokes, while Prelude is a solid, more script-like version of the style.

Congress from Adrian Williams was shown for the first time at the Association Typographique International Congress, which proved to be so popular in 1980 at Kiel; designed to present a style equally appealling in European languages. Many characters are more condensed than is usual, while others have had certain elements exagerated, bringing notice to new elements of certain letters. The concept being to bring an equality of importance to the whole, producing a collection of International characters working together in harmony on the page -- a common aim that Europeans wish of any Congress.

Our Maiden Orange Pro is a light and festive slab serif font inspired by custom hand lettered 1950's advertisements. Clean and legible, while also being offbeat and friendly, this font lends itself to a wide variety of uses. The SmallCaps and extensive figure sets offer a slightly more serious tone as well as a wider range of design use. Opentype features include: - SmallCaps. - Full set of Inferiors and Superiors for limitless fractions. - Tabular, Proportional, and Oldstyle figure sets (along with SmallCaps versions of the figures). - Stylistic Alternates for Caps to SmallCaps conversion.

No Dr. was inspired by an old movieposter lettering for the 1962 movie "James Bond: Dr. No". Just like the original Dr. No, No Dr. has a diabolical charm. It was developed into a font family that combines distinctiveness with versatility. It has a good readibility as a textfont but also looks great as a Headline. The two widths and the two weights give you a big choice. Intended to become an interesting alternative to the much used DIN Schrift, it has now developed into a highly functional family of it's own.

During the heydey of automobile travel hundreds of motels, motor courts and tourist cabins sprung up along the roadways in order to offer weary drivers (and most often their families) rest with a night's lodging. Tourist Cabin JNL takes the inline portion from the inline font Asbury Park JNL and creates this pleasant monoline design. The original design inspiration (from which the inline portion of the letters was taken) was a 1930s WPA (Works Progress Administration) Federal art project poster with the hand-lettered words “Work with Care”

With a swinging handcut look and fanciful letterforms, Granz is inspired by the iconic Oscar Peterson’s Porgy & Bess album cover by David Stone Martin – the prolific american illustrator who created more than 400 album covers, mostly for the jazz greats of the 1940s and beyond. Granz font is loaded with interlocking pairs, swashes, contextual and stylistic alternates, making it highly flexible, just perfect to jazz up your designs.Great for book covers, titling, headlines, t-shirts and many other applications, this is a font that loves to be seen. Use it big!

Our Englebert Pro draws inspiration from the title screen of the 1930's film entitled, "Der Blaue Engel", starring Marlene Dietrich. Playful but subdued, yet striking enough to catch the eye, this casual sans has a distinct signature look to it. The offbeat letterforms engage the reader, while the SmallCaps and extensive figure sets lend a wider versatility to the typeface. Opentype features include: - SmallCaps. - Full set of Inferiors and Superiors for limitless fractions. - Tabular, Proportional, and Oldstyle figure sets (along with SmallCaps versions of the figures). - Stylistic Alternates for Caps to SmallCaps conversion.

A festive spin off our Maiden Orange Pro typeface, Maiden Orange Inline Pro comes packed with all of the features of the original Maiden Orange Pro typeface, but adds a little more visual flavor with hand drawn inline cuts, leaning even more towards the custom hand lettered 1950’s advertisements that inspired the original. Clean and legible, while also being offbeat and friendly, this font lends itself to a wide variety of uses. The SmallCaps and extensive figure sets offer a slightly more serious tone as well as a wider range of design use.

Rasteroids is a typographic flashback to computing of the mid 1980s, when 9-pin dot-matrix printers were the state of the art, and most home computer displays were TVs hooked up to RF modulators. Rasteroids not only captures the dot-matrix printer look, but recreates the rasterized appearance of text on those lower-resolution monitors. Unlike that dot matrix type of yore, Rasteroids does have some variation in character width, and is legible in small blocks of copy. Still, it is best used sparingly, or as a special effect.

AggressIan is the release of the first font I ever drew. It was done by hand with triangle and parallel rule back in the mid-1980s. I originally called it Aggressor, but I never liked it. My local type designer friend, Ian Roberts, really likes this type of drawing and told me I had to release it. So I named it after him. The small caps should work well if you need a bolder version. It has oldstyle and lining figures, plus the small cap figures. I hope you like it.

Redig is a bold condensed display typeface with an assertive and athletic aesthetic. Inspired by newspaper headline typefaces from early 1900s it has chamfered corners with rounded edges that smooths out some harshness and generous x-height to its lower case characters. Redig will shine when used big. And I mean BIG. This is certainly a case when “bigger is better” really is the truth. Redig comes with an oblique style and ligatures and works best in headlines, logos, branding, social media or any display type use. Use it big.

The family tree of this friendly face runs deep. Its primary inspiration is Twentieth Century, designed by Saul Hess as a monoline version of Paul Renner’s Futura. The design was reinterpreted by Herb Lubalin as Avant Garde in the 1970s. This version softens the harsh geometry of the original designs with rounded line endings: the result is a warm, inviting face that is elegant, confident and inviting. All versions of this font include the Unicode 1250 Central European character set in addition to the standard Unicode 1252 Latin set.

Roman-style stencil fonts have been around for much longer than most people realize - from the interlocking brass stencils of the 1880s to the laser-cut plastic stencils of today. A 1 inch Roman lettering guide [die-cut from oil board with spacing holes for correct alignment] made by the now-defunct Zipatone Corporation in the 1970s was a clone of an existing design of another company; but with variations in certain character shapes. This then became the working model for Classroom Stencil JNL, which is available in both regular and oblique versions.

Introducing Baisteach, our latest all-caps vintage serif. Inspired from early 1900's typography that often used in sign paintings, packaging labels, and advertisements. This typeface is made of sharp serifs, clean edges and strong form, give you a simple yet impactful feels. Suits best for headline, logo/logotype, and many more. If you're a fan of classic typography, make sure you add this font to your design toolbox. Last but not least, don't forget to activate its OpenType Feature to get the wider selection of letter combinations.

Roag is an industrial geometric sans paying homage to mechanical designs of the 1930s. A precise balance of modern geometrics, with a functional yet sparing style that effectively communicates without distraction. Roag is a straightforward, unadorned type family with efficient construction. Details include seven weights with matching italics and over 950 characters per style. Opentype features consist of eight variations of numerals, including inferiors, superiors, fractions, case figures and circled figures. Additional features include small caps, case-sensitive forms, stylistic alternates, ligatures, game symbols, arrows and language support covering Western, South, Central Europe and Vietnamese.

The hand lettered sans serif title on the1931 sheet music for “(Potatoes are Cheaper-Tomatoes are Cheaper) Now’s the Time to Fall in Love” presented another opportunity to create a typeface from the wealth of unusual alphabets found on the covers of vintage and antique song sheets. However, it seems that even as late as the 1930s, song writers had the urge to pen long-worded titles for their musical compositions. This thirteen word verbal excursion became the model for Casual Deco JNL, which is available in both regular and oblique versions.

A modern squarish sans inspired by machine-readable typefaces of the 1950s, including OCR-A and B. Smooth curved contours with a humanist touch sit in harmony alongside pure straight lines. Contrasting shapes create a modern aesthetic pleasing to the eye and pixel perfect execution for modern-day scenarios. Details include seven weights with matching italics, six variable widths and 445 characters per style. Opentype features consist of five variations of numerals with stylistic zero’s, inferiors, superiors, fractions, case sensitive forms, ligatures, arrows and language support covering Western, South and Central Europe.

Decorative, Display, Headline, Serif, 1920s, Hand Lettered, Engraved, Incised, Bold, Extra Bold, Retro, Vintage, Nostalgic An ad in the July 27, 1928 issue of The Film Daily for FBO Pictures was an encouragement to all theaters to accept the emergence of 'talking pictures' and "Don't be Panicked by Sound". The headline text was hand lettered in an extra bold serif type face with engraved [incised] lines. The lettering has been redrawn as the digital type face Movie Usher JNL, and is available in both regular and oblique versions.

By the late 1920s, lettering and design had already begun to feel the influences of what would become the Art Deco Movement. The sheet music for the 1927 song "Without You Sweetheart" had its title hand lettered in a block style letter with rounded corners – with the exception of the 'S' and 'R' in "Sweetheart"; reflecting design elements of both styles. For consistency, those letters were changed to fit the rest of the design, and the result is the digital font College Nouveau JNL, available in both regular and oblique versions.

Imagine there's an explosion in a comic book, the exclamation that follows is set in PAGODA INTERNATIONAL. This font is inspired by the graphics on one of Honolulu's 1950's skyscrapers - The Pagoda Hotel with the International Ballroom. Created by former wine label designer, Wesley Poole, Pagoda is the opposite of sophisticated elegance. "Big, fat, and horsy, that's what I was after. It's the wacky juxtaposition of these familiar shapes that makes it work. Just try a couple words. You'll be surprised! I'm glad this one's behind me. It's my first pancake."

The inspiration for Deco Eccentrique JNL was initially hand drawn contoured lettering from a mid-1920s piece of sheet music; the style of the letters showing influences of the upcoming Art Deco movement. This was made into a digital font entitled Poster Contoured JNL. Once all of the excess parts of the previous design were stripped away to only the inner letters, the pre-Art Deco influences remained along with characters of varying stroke widths and shapes. This non-conformist type face is available in both regular and oblique versions.

The Souvenir typeface was originally drawn by Morris Fuller Benton in 1914 as a single weight for the American Type Founders company. It was revived in 1967 by Photo-Lettering and optimized for phototypesetting equipment. ITC was formed in 1971 and, with the help of Photo-Lettering, introduced ITC Souvenir as one of its first font families. ITC Souvenir was designed by Ed Benguiat and comes in four weights, each with a matching italic. In 1983, Ned Bunnel's ITC Souvenir Monospaced was released; this is a monospace version of ITC Souvenir.

The 1930 Geneva Motor Show (Salon International De l'Automobile Et Du Cycle) showcased a lot of new cars, but one item in particular took my interest: the amazing art deco poster announcing the show. Lokomotiv font was based on this poster. It is a very deco-ish font, futuristic, angular, with bold squares, rounds and triangles. As I had to work with just a handful of glyphs, and needed to fill an entire font, I made up the missing ones myself. Lokomotiv, by the way, is German for Locomotive.

San Marco is a part of the 1990 program Type before Gutenberg, which included the work of twelve contemporary font designers and represented styles from across the ages. Linotype offers a package including all these fonts on its web page, www.fonts.de. San Marco was designed by Karlgeorg Hoefer and brings to mind the style of the Italian Gothic found on the cathedrals of Milan and Florence as well as on the facade of St. Mark’s Cathedral in Venice. Its highly stylized characters make San Marco a good choice for extravagant typography.

I was commissioned by the Emporium (now Macys) to digitize Radiant Bold Extra Condensed (originally designed by Robert Middleton in 1940) for use in their Sunday supplement to the San Francisco Examiner. For several years, I stubbornly refused to add the lowercase letters to the font, because I thought it looked best just used with caps, but finally relented, added the lowercase letters and at the same time created two more weights as well: Light and Medium. Used very large and carefully, these faces can be quite elegant.

Decalcomania JNL is based on examples of gold and black water-applied initial decals made by the Transfer Monogram Company of Chicago circa the 1940s. It is presumed the patterns for the letters were hand cut, possibly explaining the variations in line widths and character shapes. These eccentricities were left intact and followed through to the other characters in order to represent a more "authentic" digital version of these vintage decals. Decalcomania JNL is available in both the regular (outline) version, and a solid black version, as well as obliques of both styles.

Designed for the newspaper technology of the 1980s, Clarion uses many of the findings made in the preparation of Monotype Nimrod, from which it is derived. The Clarion font family differs from Nimrod in its detailing, which is more akin to that of the Ionics, a style which influenced most designers of contemporary newspaper faces. The large x-height and sturdy construction of the characters make Clarion well suited for use on laser printers as well as being an excellent choice for setting newspapers, journals, newsletters and circulars.

The inspiration source for Chaoxiang Monogram is another hand-drawn treasure from a vintage embroidery publication which plays on the anglo-version of chinese letters with stabbing strokes and the charm of the orient. While the original intent of this monogram style is uncertain, the possibilities of its use are up to your imagination. This is one of many monogram designs from the early 1900’s which fall into a two letter format bound within a framing element. Download and view the MFC Chaoxiang Guidebook if you would like to learn a little more.

This is a family of "Gothic" types from the Monotype Design Studio. The faces named "Gothic No. 1 through 4" were produced by Compugraphic. Gothic No. 1 is a condensed, late 19th century American-style sans serif typeface. Gothic No. 2 and Gothic No. 3 are based on the Metro #2 series, designed by W.A. Dwiggins for Mergenthaler Linotype during the 1920s and 30s. Gothic No. 4 looks vaguely like Gothic number one, but is heavier and smaller on the body. Gothic Extra Light Extended is a very light and wide design.

The Xavier family of typefaces is based on the delightful deco typeface called Ashley Crawford, originally designed in 1930 by Ashley Havinden. After designing Xavier Black (Serif) and Xavier Sans Black, I added Bold Sans, Medium and Medium Sans and finally added lowercase to the medium weights. Although more manageable than Ashley Crawford, Xavier, due to its very playful nature (splayed A, M, etc.) needs to be used with care, especially in terms of spacing. Xavier is a playful typeface and I have been particularly pleased to see it used in children's books.

Sanitation JNL is a bold Art Deco sans design inspired by some stylized hand lettering on a 1930s-era WPA (Works Progress Administration) poster and is available in both regular and oblique versions. The topic of the poster was "Your home is not complete without a sanitary unit" and that was recommended by the State Department of Public Health. A "sanitary unit" is the formal name for what rural folks called an "outhouse", and it's presumed the target group were homeowners not hooked up to major sewer lines such as in those rural areas.

The Women's Suffrage Movement gained women the right to vote in 1920. Up until then there were many ways undertaken to rally sympathy for the cause. In 1916 Alice Paul formed the National Woman's Party. That same year a song with the [exhaustive] sixteen word title "She's Good Enough to be Your Baby's Mother (And She's Good Enough to Vote with You)" yielded a hand lettered Art Nouveau sans serif design in the main portion of the title. This became the basis for Plain Nouveau JNL, which is available in both regular and oblique versions.

Rough Riders Redux along with our Rough Riders font, got its start from a small sample of letters used in the logo for the Beach Creek Railroad Co. dating back to the early 1860’s. I studied the design for one year before drawing the letters. Rough Riders and the Redux version are simply the most Wildest Western looking fonts you'll find. The Rough Riders fill font is not meant to be used as a stand alone black typeface, the fill font is designed to be layered behind the regular Rough Riders font.

When designing a font, I often imagine how I think it should be used or where I'd be likely to see it out in the real world. With Barataria I envisioned it on decorative, antique-looking signs hanging outside shops in the French Quarter of New Orleans - hence the name. Barataria is based on samples of 1920s period poster lettering. It's a bold, heavy roman font with strong, rounded character forms. Barataria also has some unique alternative character forms, like the super-looped 'g' shown in the sample.

Syrup is a friendly, subtly rounded type family combining sans and script styles. It’s aesthetic roots are in the sign painting of the 1950’s but the execution is distinctly modern. The different styles are designed to work well together so you can have multiple levels of typography all with the same feeling and aesthetic. Try combining the styles in different ways for maximum impact. All styles are packed with Opentype features to enable flexible customisation of your design and the font is especially well suited for branding and packaging typography.

The inspiration source for MFC Gilchrist Monogram is an extremely ornamented letterset from a vintage embroidery publication from the early 1900's. We’ve digitally recreated the ornamental glyphs from the original design, and created a matching set of smallcaps in order to offer more versatility with this monogram. We have also created two additional sets of alternate glyphs with different fills for more variations. Experiment with all of these in different combinations for unique designs. Download and view the MFC Gilchrist Monogram Guidebook if you would like to learn a little more.